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Seasonal hawk count over Greenwich shows declines

Researchers at Audubon Greenwich’s Quaker Ridge hawk watch site are alarmed that they’ve seen only 8,025 hawks over the fall migration season this year, the second lowest total in more than three decades of collecting data. In years past, they have seen as many as 30,000 hawks in a single day, said Ryan MacLean, the official hawk counter at the site. “We have 31 years of data, and unfortunately out of 31 years, this is our second lowest on record,” MacLean said. Each year, observers post up on Quaker Ridge, the steep hill on Audubon Greenwich property that sits right next to their headquarters, and count different species of hawks and eagles as they make their way south. The migration season generally runs from the beginning of September until the beginning of December. In 2015, 12,076 birds were counted at Quaker Ridge. In 2014, there were 16,139, about twice as many as the 2016 total. The historical low was in 2003, when 4,562 birds were counted.